Pulmonologist Questions Pulmonologist

Vaping side effects?

What are the long term effects of vaping? I have extreme anxiety and am worried that the vaping i have done will give me cancer.

Male | 17 years old
Medications: escitalopram
Conditions: anxiety

2 Answers

There are many similarities between vaping and smoking, although vaping was originally touted as being healthier.  Depending on what you vape, you may be getting similar amounts of nicotine in your lungs.  The full extent of the long term effects of vaping is not completely known yet, but it is probably better if you stop this habit.  At your age, you should be able to get your lungs to return to normal.  Your lungs contain delicate tissue that can be damaged by almost anything foreign that you inhale.  
Hello

You are a 17 year old person who is concerned about the effects of vaping on you health.

This is a process where drugs or other substances are reduced to a vapor and inhaled.

This is best compared to cigarette smoking where tobacco is burned and the resultant smoke is inhaled. Nicotine is inhaled along with tars and other products of the burnt tobacco. Tobacco has been shown to have an effect on the development of lung cancer and emphysema. Stopping smoking is a current medical recommendation to decrease the incidence of lung and other cancers. Persons who smoke find stopping to be difficult

Vaping and inhaling nicotine has been found to be effective in facilitating the stoppage of smoking.

There is otherwise little understanding of the detrimental effects of vaping. Many potentially damaging agents are used in vaping. It is expected that toxicity of agents that are used in vaping will appear as they did in smoking when more research is performed and published.

We hope that this is helpful.